Helping an old man
push his shopping cart,
how old I don’t know,
she tripped,84 herself,
my sister there
immediately calling an ambulance.
She told me of this that night
said, “If only she didn’t do that.”
stopped her
said, “She needed to
from love or pride, don’t know.”
Next day the news:
broke her hip
worse
afterwards
if the operation went well
an aluminum walker
to lean on.
And all her life
hauling groceries
and laundry.
The only matter now
I’d tell her, if I dared,
to carry on
beyond the inconceivable
betrayal
of the body
which once
she called her own.

Charles Chaim Wax

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/inscribed-on-this-gravestone-of-flesh/